Video

Transcript

let’s talk about the relationship

between a potassium and diabetes did you

realize that a potassium deficiency

could actually trigger a new onset of

diabetes if you have diabetes or

pre-diabetes or insulin resistance this

video is very very important in fact one

of the common drugs the first line of

defense against high blood pressure is

these diuretics called thiazide

diuretics and it’s well known that they

give you a risk of developing diabetes

now you think that would discourage

doctors from using it but it’s one of

the big side effects these diuretics are

used for hypertension

so that’s why they use it on the flip

side there’s another drug called an Ace

inhibitor okay which actually protects

against diabetes it actually lowers your

risk of getting diabetes which is

interesting and it too is used for blood

pressure now my question is

what’s going on here why would one

increase the risk and yet the other one

decrease the risk and I believe it has

everything to do with what these two

drugs do to potassium first of all the

thiazide diuretic depletes your

potassium if you are consuming a diet

that is very low on potassium like most

people and you’re taking this drug on

top of that chances are you can end up

with very low levels of potassium and

without enough potassium okay insulin

can’t be released too well so we have a

lessened amount or production of insulin

when we have low potassium now what’s

going to happen when we don’t have

enough insulin

we’re going to have higher levels of

glucose in the blood what’s the name of

that diabetes Now with the ace inhibitor

it just so happens one of the things

that it does is it increases potassium

by helping you prevent the loss of

potassium

so there’s this certain Ace enzyme

that’s basically increasing blood

pressure it also helps you hold sodium

and it releases potassium and so they

develop these ACE inhibitors okay to

inhibit that enzyme to help you lower

the blood pressure and one of the

mechanisms that works is basically by

helping you hold potassium but my

question is this if potassium not only

helps you lower your blood pressure but

also if potassium is deficient your

blood pressure is going to go up in the

first place so if the way this ACE

inhibitor is working by increasing your

potassium levels to bring your blood

pressure down then why not just start

consuming foods high in potassium or

take potassium why do we need to take a

drug to increase our potassium you have

to realize how important potassium is

for your whole body it protects the

kidney against kidney disease it

protects your heart against all sorts of

issues it keeps the arteries flexible it

helps prevent a stroke and apparently it

also helps you protect against diabetes

because it helps to increase the normal

amounts of insulin that you need to

regulate this blood sugar so we have

these interesting drugs used for various

symptoms but I don’t understand why they

just don’t look beyond that and what’s

really underneath this problem

there are so many people that get rid of

their blood pressure problem by taking

potassium and there’s also a lot of

people that improve their blood sugars

by taking potassium so as far as

metabolic syndrome where you have both

blood pressure problems and glucose

potassium is probably one of the most

important minerals to take especially

since the majority of the population

just does not get enough the

requirements for potassium are extremely

high and you might not realize this so

one banana will give you like 300

milligrams of potassium you need 4 700

okay banana 300

requirement 4700

potatoes are high in potassium leafy

greens are the best source of potassium

big salads avocado is really good you

can also get potassium from electrolyte

powders because a lot of times the pills

only come in 99 milligrams again you

need 4 700 milligrams okay so you’d have

to have a lot of pills to achieve that

daily recommended amount

our bodies also need potassium for the

sodium potassium pump which is in every

single cell in your body to help power

the nervous system in connection with

the muscles and this is why I feel low

in potassium you feel kind of tired

potassium also helps to regulate sodium

and you need this balance of at least

twice as much potassium as you do sodium

in fact if you have a salt sensitivity

which means that intolerance for salt

what that really means is you just need

more potassium and if you’re eating a

lot of carbs and sugar it takes

potassium to store this sugar so a good

amount of potassium in the body gets

locked up in this sugar this is why when

you go on a low carb diet you get rid of

so much fluid because you’re getting rid

of all this excess glucose that’s stored

as glycogen and some people can lose up

to 11 pounds of fluid just by getting

rid of this this excess of glucose

that’s stored but in the process you’re

going to lose potassium too because it’s

locked up into the glucose this is why

it’s really important to take potassium

or Get Enough from the diet when you’re

doing the ketogenic diet or a low carb

diet but then again if you’re in a high

carb diet you need it even more one last

point about this interesting relation

between potassium and Insulin when

someone’s a type 1 diabetic all right

and they forget to take their insulin

they can start generating massive

amounts of ketones way way higher than

you could if you didn’t have the problem

and that’s called diabetic ketoacidosis

one of the big treatments

for this is to take potassium which will

not only help alkalize the body because

it’s alkaline but it can definitely help

protect against this condition why

because potassium is needed to make this

insulin to increase the production of

insulin so it’s my belief if you have

enough potassium as a diabetic type one

you probably would not develop

ketoacidosis but of course that’s just

my opinion check with your doctor before

taking any actions on this video there’s

a lot more to learn about potassium so

if you have not seen this video you

should check it out I put it up right

here